Kamaal Dhamaal Malamaal

Nana Patekar and Shreyas Talpade in Kamaal Dhamaal Malamaal

Genre: Comedy

Director: Priyadarsan

Cast: Shreyas, Nana Patekar, Om Puri, Paresh Rawal, Madhurima

Storyline: A cowardly, lazy, good for nothing fellow brings home a hard working, gluttonous ruffian to take care of him only to find that the guy has a few secrets of his own.

Ups: Gives you an idea of the scripts Malayalam cinema generates, even if there's quite a bit lost in translation here ( Kamaal Dhamaal Malamaal is the remake of Marykkundoru Kunjaadu ). Shreyas tries hard to make this work and with Nana Patekar for company, evokes a couple of laughs. Om Puri and Paresh Rawal are in the cast too, but if you want to watch them in a film that actually offers them something to do, catch the other release this week — OMG Oh My God!

Downs: You know how much of thought has gone into the film when the makers randomly string together three words that rhyme to form a title. Unbelievably inane. Among the worst films made this year,

KDM is a tiring watch. The village recreated is so generic as if the brief handed over to the production design team was to come up with some “North Indian looking village” with a church in the centre because the plot involves a stolen cross. When Indian cinema is coming of age with credibly real rural environments like Gorakhpur in

Ishqiya , Chambal in

Paan Singh Tomar or Dhanbad in

Gangs of Wasseypur , this seems so dated in its sensibility and fake in its diegesis. It is impossible to relate to characters spewing textbook Hindi, while their wardrobe seems to have plenty of denim. While regional cinema may still revel in plots involving lost and found siblings, even the very mention of such a conceit in a modern day Hindi film makes you wonder if the film was sent through a time machine from the Eighties. Unless there’s a cash reward for watching this or you just happen to be the editor of this film, you have no reason to endure this torture.

Bottomline: A terribly slow, fake remake that makes you feel sorry for the talented leads and the technical team that has to live with the fact that they contributed to the making of this film.